Hefty hellion Janice Thibodeaux, 33, said she was outraged when she saw Cowell jokingly choke fellow judge Paula Abdul during the show last week, and Thibodeaux decided to take her anger out on his ex, TV gossip reporter Terri Seymour.

“She was taking some photographs with her camera and I knew she was his girlfriend so I went up to her to tell her how I felt. We started arguing and then I put my hands around her neck and started choking her just like Simon had done with Paula,” she told Radar Online in a jailhouse interview.

“Then I walked away and I was tackled by the police, but I don’t regret what I did because of what Simon did to Paula. Nobody seemed to care about that,” she told the Web site.

Thibodeaux said she had a ticket to the show and had intended to be in the audience at the Nokia Theatre before she saw Seymour, who was covering “Idol” for the celebrity TV news show “Extra.”

Thibodeaux was booked on felony battery charges and held in jail on $52,703 bail.